Body support devices or body contact articles, particularly orthopaedic supports are required in numerous circumstances. For example, supports may be required for any portions of the body, for disabled persons. Insoles may be required for shoes, to provide support for the feet. Joint supports may be required for various joints of the body which may have become injured or defective for any reason.
A support may be required for the head or neck, or back. A seat may be required conforming to the shape of an individual.
In addition, in very many cases supports are required for the hand or hands of a person suffering from some kind of disability, A person with no disability at all, may require to have a handle on an article which conforms precisely to the shape of his or her hand. Persons requiring such hand supports may simply require a shaped grip, which conforms precisely to the shape of their hand. Such persons may be craftsman, or may be professionals such as surgeons, or may be sportsmen such as players of various games such as racquet sports, golf and the like or other sportsmen such as fishermen, hunters, and the like any of whom may require an article such as the handle of a golf club, fishing rod, or the stock of a weapon, to be shaped to particularly conform to the hand.
In most cases such a person will not be suffering from any disability, but will merely require a precise match between the shape of the hand grip and their hand. Conversely, persons suffering for example from arthritis of the fingers or other joints may require a hand grip of a peculiar shape, to conform to the somewhat deformed shape of their hand resulting from such a disability and this may have to be re-shaped from time to time.
In the case of certain other sports, shoe, or boot liners or insoles may be required to conform precisely to the shape of the foot. This is particularly required for example in the sport of skiing where the boot is required to fit snugly under the instep and all over the foot. Re-shaping of such boot inserts may be required, as the boots stretch.
Conformable support devices may also be required in many other cases other than orthopaedic situations. Such cases may arise in the case of packaging or containing of precision or scientific instruments, to prevent damage. Other cases may involve the provision of a shaped work support for holding a particular work piece, such as, an item of jewellery for example, while it is being worked upon.
In the past, various different systems have been proposed of more or less considerable complexity and expense. Orthopaedic supports requiring special forming and moulding techniques are of course well known and are manufactured routinely from fast setting plaster materials. In other cases, supports have been shaped from bendable metal sections. In other cases, a complex multi-stage formation process is involved including the steps of making a "plug" in the shape of a limb, or portion of the body or an article, and them forming a support of glass fibre reinforced resin material, with or without padding. In other cases supports such as for example gun stocks are actually carved by hand out of wood, in an effort to as far as possible conform to the hand and body of the user.
Clearly, where such a conformable support device is required, it is desirable if it can be manufactured in a simple one step technique out of low cost materials. Preferably it will be made by direct contact with the portion of the body, or the article, which it is intended to support. In this way any loss of accuracy due to the making of intermediate articles such as plugs, moulds and the like is avoided.
In the particular field of dentistry, it has been known to utilize settable materials for obtaining a form from the mouth or teeth. These settable materials are then used in a multi-stage process for making dentures, or denture supports, or for example making caps for teeth. Such settable materials are of such a nature that generally speaking they do not set completely hard, and are relatively easily distorted out of shape. Consequently, once the form has been taken from the mouth, the materials must then be treated with considerable care.
It is clearly desirable to provide a mouldable body support for any part of the body such as handles, insoles or in the case of spectacles, which may be required to fit the bridge of the nose, or over the ear, which may readily be moulded directly to conform to the shape of the body and will then retain its shape, for as long as is required, but which may be re-moulded and reshaped from time to time and daily if needed in accordance with the needs of the user.
Helmets may also advantageously be provided with liners conform which can be personally moulded to the shape of the skull of the individual.
It is clearly desirable to provide such a re-mouldable body contacting article for other purposes, other than actually supporting parts of the body, whether for orthopaedic purposes or otherwise, and which again will retain its shape, and which may yet be remoulded readily from time to time and daily if needed.
The present invention addresses the above problems.